


Ambiguity

by Laramie



Series: Ambiguity/Experiment [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-09 23:03:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4367678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He sees the moment Thomas's heart breaks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mod AU.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?"

Thomas looks boneless and sleepy, lying next to Jimmy and blinking slowly, and Jimmy secretly thinks him rather adorable. "About what?"

"About us," Jimmy says. "The silly thing we just did."

He sees the moment Thomas's heart breaks. His dreamy expression shifts minutely into a look of betrayal. It is nothing obvious: his eyebrows lower slightly, as he pulls himself up to sit against the pillows, and his mouth turns down at the corners; but with how close they are (in more ways than one), the look is clear enough that he might as well have started crying and beating his fists on the floor. "No, I won't," Thomas says evenly, and although Jimmy can read him like a book Thomas is good enough at acting that Jimmy can pretend he doesn't realise that he has just broken his friend into pieces.

Jimmy starts to feel a little nauseous, in his stomach and in the tight feeling at the back of his throat. He feels an uncomfortable urge to take it back, to say _it's okay Thomas, let's tell the world and get married and adopt a hundred children and buy a house by the sea, just promise me you'll stop looking like that_.

"We both knew this was a one-off," Jimmy says awkwardly, mostly to reassure himself that Thomas _did_ know, that he hadn't thought this would be the start of some great romance.

"Of course," Thomas replies lightly, and smiles, but even though his mouth moves the smile looks hollow - somehow worse than his expression before.

Jimmy rolls out of bed to use the bathroom.

"See you tomorrow then," Thomas says flatly, apparently thinking Jimmy is going to leave.

Jimmy pauses. He _should_ leave, he suddenly realises. Normally they would stay up for hours after a night out, drinking cheap cider and laughing about a spilled drink or a failed pulling attempt. Not that either of them are much for clubs these days - mostly their nights out don't drift much further than the Grantham Arms at the end of Thomas's road, where they start with pub grub and finish with a pub quiz before going back to Thomas's flat to talk.

But of course they won't do that tonight. Jimmy shouldn't have expected they could do _that_ and just carry on as normal. He glances over his shoulder. Thomas isn't looking at him.

Jimmy puts his arms in his shirtsleeves and cleans himself up in the bathroom (there's a red mark, low on the side of his neck, and his stomach isn't becoming heavy again at that, it _isn't_ ) before returning to the bedroom for the rest of his clothes.

Thomas hasn't moved. He's still sat in bed, bare-chested (and bare everything else, underneath the duvet), and watching himself scratching at a tiny section of the cotton duvet cover with his fingernail, back and forth. In the quiet room, Jimmy can hear it: _scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch_. Jimmy swallows and briefly tries to pull his hair into a slightly less realistic version of its just-had-sex style.

For a moment, when he's dressed, he stands in silence and looks at Thomas, feeling as though there is something he should say. Jimmy can see the trails of his own fingernails on Thomas's chest.

Before Jimmy can think of anything to say, Thomas murmurs: "Bye, then."

Words crowd in his head: _I'm_ _sorry,_ he wants to say, or: _you did know this was a one-night thing, didn't you?_  or: _are you still in love with me? I thought you'd got over me years ago,_ or: _I wish we were drunk enough to blame this on alcohol._

But he's sober, and the words slip away. "Yeah," he says instead. "See you tomorrow."

He stands there for a few more seconds as Thomas nods at the blankets, until his legs unfreeze and he can leave the room. As he softly pulls Thomas's flat door closed, Jimmy wonders why he is standing on this side of it when what he really wants is to be back in Thomas's bedroom, to lie close to him under the duvet and hold him as they fall asleep.

Jimmy turns, and walks quietly away down the corridor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although earlier Jimmy was close enough to count the freckles on Thomas’s cheeks, there’s a distance between them now that hasn’t been there since they first met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t want to lose the intense, focused style that I was aiming for in the initial oneshot, so I’ve written this and the third (final) chapter as two very narrow slices of time.

Jimmy takes the bus home, feeling as though he has taken a sidestep into a parallel universe where he and Thomas don’t understand each other instinctively and practically breathe the same air when they’re together. Although earlier Jimmy was close enough to count the freckles on Thomas’s cheeks, there’s a distance between them now that hasn’t been there since they first met and Thomas kept flirting with him.

It feels as though, ever since Thomas said _See you tomorrow then,_ Jimmy’s been following a path paved by Thomas’s expectations, too afraid to step off it and discover which path he actually wants to be on.

Mechanically, Jimmy gets off the bus at his stop and starts walking up the hill in the chill night air. The problem is, it all felt so natural. The only disconcerting thing is that it didn't feel disconcerting at all; he could have quite happily lain back afterwards and gone back to chatting about Thomas’s good news - the newspaper for which he writes book reviews has agreed to publish some of his articles about LGBT+ issues on their website, three taken from those already on _QueerInsider.co.uk_ and three brand new ones. Jimmy was so proud his chest hurt.

But the point is - shouldn’t it be awkward, to have sex with your best friend? Shouldn’t he have wanted to escape as soon as he could, not just carry on as normal?

Jimmy lets himself into his building and goes up the stairs to his studio flat. It’s both sparse and untidy; he hasn’t got around to washing his clothes after Brazil, yet (he may hate his call-centre job but at least he earns money for travelling). Without the light, which Jimmy can’t bear to turn on, he sheds his clothes and crawls straight into bed. With his head under the blanket, the evening floats through his brain in disconnected fragments.

_(I haven’t been with a woman in six months, it’s driving me mad. Maybe I should try a guy, just once, eh?_

The way Thomas blushed.

 _Don’t suppose_ you’re _up for it, Thomas? Might be less complicated with someone who already knows me and what I’m talkin’ about._

Thomas’s mouth on his, right there in the pub, almost maddeningly slow.

The careful way Thomas touched his cheek before becoming more eager.

The way he looked when Jimmy asked him not to tell.)

It is too hot to breathe under the duvet, and Jimmy pulls it down a little. Leaning over the side of the mattress, he fishes his phone out of his jeans pocket and swipes to unlock it.

He could call Thomas.

Jimmy checks his email twice and opens up his contacts list and looks at Thomas’s name, shifting the list up and down to stop the screen sleeping.

He could call Thomas.

The thought makes his heart seize with adrenaline and his stomach flutter in fear.

_He. could. call. Thomas._

But somehow that feels like a different parallel universe altogether, and he can’t quite bring himself to do it, even though he wants to so badly his hand shakes.

He thinks of Thomas in bed at the same time as Jimmy and for a second he can almost picture Thomas next to him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s so heavy he feels as though he should be lying down, because Thomas hasn’t smiled in the whole time Jimmy’s been there.

Jimmy sits at Thomas’s breakfast bar with his chin and arms leaning on the counter. When he arrived to meet Thomas for their trip to the football, Thomas, uncharacteristically, was still unwashed and dressed in pyjamas; now, Jimmy is waiting for him to get ready. He’s so heavy he feels as though he should be lying down, because Thomas hasn’t smiled in the whole time Jimmy's been there.

He meant to say something, he really did, but he doesn’t know what. Maybe _I only left because you said goodbye_. With Thomas shaving in the bathroom, the urge to get reassurance intensifies. Words should be easy with Thomas, but it’s as though there’s a disconnect between Jimmy's brain and the muscles of his mouth that would allow him to speak them. Sadness pours like an invisible liquid out of the bathroom door.

Eventually, without Thomas’s eyes on him, Jimmy manages to say: “Are you upset?”

“Let’s not talk about it,” comes Thomas’s disembodied voice.

Hesitantly, Jimmy says: “I did say that it would be a one-time thing."

Thomas drifts out of the bathroom, slowly rubbing his newly-shaven face. Without looking up, he says, almost casually: “I thought you meant one relationship."

Jimmy sits up straight and stares as Thomas plucks a t-shirt from the sofa. _Shit_. “No, I meant - you know, _once_.”

“Yeah.” His gaze flickers up to Jimmy for a split second before he looks away again. “I realised that.” He wanders into his bedroom and pulls the door to.

 _Realised_. Not realise, _realised._ He didn’t know from the start - he didn’t know until Jimmy said _You won’t tell anyone, will you?,_ a betrayal to a man who refuses to let anyone tell him that there’s anything shameful in loving or fucking anyone, no matter what their gender.

With his thumb, Jimmy touches the spot on his own neck where he knows Thomas’s kiss still lingers. He wonders if Thomas’s chest still bears the evidence of their night’s activities, and is struck by the desire to find out, to pull Thomas’s t-shirt over his head, to soothe any sore marks with his lips, to tease Thomas’s nipples with his thumbs.

Jimmy is startled by how poignant he finds this image; by how naturally these sort of things could fit themselves into his and Thomas’s relationship.

“Thomas?” he calls.

Thomas, now dressed, comes back into the living area and stops in front of Jimmy, his eyes still downcast as he flips through his wallet. “Yeah?”

“Look at me a second.”

Thomas meets his gaze reluctantly, his eyes beautiful and shining, his skin smooth and soft.

Jimmy swallows. “I think I’m bi.”

Thomas blinks at him, startled. “Is this... about last night?”

The sort of smile that Thomas always inspires in Jimmy takes over his face. “Yeah. But, mostly, it’s about you.”

Discarding his wallet, Thomas steps around the breakfast bar, wraps Jimmy up in his arms and begins to cry.

Jimmy hugs him back and smiles into his shoulder even as his own tears begin to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like you've earned more fluff than this gives you but this is what felt right. I hope you like it anyway.


End file.
